Council Grills Mayor Over Homeless Encampment Plan

A skeptical Rochester City Council questioned Mayor Lovely Warren about the legality of her plan to move a Rochester homeless encampment from downtown to land the city owns near West Broad Street.

Council committees and the mayor are wrestling with what to do about the half-dozen men and women living in tents in the shadow of the Douglass-Anthony Bridge downtown. The land belongs to Spectrum Cable, which has plans for the land and whats the homeless off it. An eviction attempt in the spring failed.

Mayor Warren says there may be no legal provision in the city charter for setting up a homeless encampment, but she says the city needs a temporary solution, fast.

Warren says she's worked out dumpsters and city garbage pickup for the homeless encampment, and she says if city council doesn't approve, the camp will move someplace the city can't control and will end up with police involved.